nd
to ensure its continuance Sir Isaac came great distances from his former
assumption of a matrimonial absolutism. She was to be granted all sorts
of small autonomies,--the word autonomy was carefully avoided throughout
but its spirit was omnipresent.

She was in particular to have a banking account for her dress and
personal expenditure into which Sir Isaac would cause to be paid a
hundred pounds monthly and it was to be private to herself alone until
he chose to go through the cashed cheques and counterfoils. She was to
be free to come and go as she saw fit, subject to a punctual appearance
at meals, the comfort and dignity of Sir Isaac and such specific
engagements as she might make with him. She might have her own friends,
but there the contract became a little misty; a time was to come when
Sir Isaac was to betray a conviction that the only proper friends that a
woman can have are women. There were also non-corroborated assurances as
to the privacy of her correspondence. The second Rolls-Royce car was to
be entirely at her service, and Clarence was to be immediately
supplemented by a new and more deferential man, and as soon as possible
assisted to another situation and replaced. She was to have a voice in
the further furnishing of Black Strand and in the arrangement of its
garden. She was to read what she chose and think what she liked within
her head without too minute or suspicious an examination by Sir Isaac,
and short of flat contradiction at his own table she was to be free to
express her own opinions in any manner becoming a lady. But more
particularly if she found her ideas infringing upon the management or
influence of the International Bread and Cake Stores, she was to convey
her objections and ideas in the first instance privately and
confidentially to Sir Isaac.

Upon this point he displayed a remarkable and creditable sensitiveness.
His pride in that organization was if possible greater than his original
pride in his wife, and probably nothing in all the jarring of their
relationship had hurt him more than her accessibility to hostile
criticism and the dinner-table conversation with Charterson and Blenker
that had betrayed this fact. He began to talk about it directly she
returned to him. His protestations and explanations were copious and
heart-felt. It was perhaps the chief discovery made by Lady Harman at
this period of reconstruction that her husband's business side was not
to be explained compl